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Getting Links With Twitter Hashtags

We have suggested elsewhere that Google should adopt a Weakest Link approach in its search algorithms. There are far too many people spending far too much time amassing more and more links to their websites. They do this with the mistaken understanding that this may help their websites be more visible when people do Google keyword searches. If only Google would rely only on links with more authority, this time wasting and irritating activity could cease. Unfortunately it has not happened yet.

The only links worth having are links that do command some authority. That is true now and will continue to be true however the keyword search algorithms may change. Darren Rowse of Problogger as usual provides some excellent advice in his post on 11 Ways to Increase Your Chances of Being Linked to By a Blogger. Here are his 11 items of advice:

Write something worth linking to

Suggest a Link to a post not your site

Develop a Relationship

Demonstrate Knowledge of the Blog and Blogger

Research

Add Value

Stay on topic

Be selective in what you promote

Reciprocate

Build on the Experience

Be Link Worthy

Most of these are almost self explanatory. However his article is a good one if any of them are unclear to you.

Another way of trying to get on a blogger’s radar screen is to follow them on Twitter. Most bloggers do tweet their Twitter followers to let them know when they have written a new blog post. If you happen to spot such a tweet, then by retweeting their blog post tweet, you may well find they will start following you and the relationship begins. I think this is sufficiently valuable, that it might usefully have been included in Darren Rowse’s list, if he had wished to extend it to 12 ways.

Of course only your followers see your tweets. Only if the blogger does a Twitter search, will s/he see what you have retweeted. To increase the chances it may be seen, you could always try using a hashtag. If for example, your post is about TGIF then in your retweet add the #tgif hashtag. Others who find that of interest may spot it and retweet it and perhaps word will get back to the original blogger.

If you have found hashtags useful in making connections and gaining links, why not add your experience in the comments here. Non-spamming comments are welcome and do get a link in consequence, which should be worth having.

This could really work rather well. Specially because new wordpress version comes with even more tighter integration with twitter. I will definitely try this out on a couple of bloggers and see if they actually starts following me

Though, it still doesn’t mean I got a backlink from them. When it comes to hashtags, I can simply post the link with or without hashtags myself so I don’t know how this relates to getting a blogger to link back to you:))

So now you’ve given me another whole area to study about hashtags for twitter.
I know twitter use is in hypermode as I have written about, but I have only scratched the surface but can only study so much as I have to work.
Thanks, look forward to following Amy on Twitter.

What you are say I think is rather genius. I only have one question, I used twitter for a few months and didn’t fall in love with the concept. However, I was on long enough to know that twitter has it’s own language, what does the hashtag represent, when someone retweets your post? This could be worth me giving twitter a second chance.

these are really helpful and practical points for using twitter, especially the staying on focus. It’s amazing how someone can start off talking about one subject and end up on a completely different matter. the more niche the better in my opinion.

It’s not a bad idea, Thomas. It’s probably doing a Twitter Search first to check that people seem to use that hashtag. If it is rarely used, then folk are unlikely to go check out what is hashtagged that way.